Video analytics technology has evolved to be a smart business tool, providing businesses with not only smart video surveillance, but also operational tools to create a safer and more efficient workplace.
Primarily, video analytics are used to create alerts when behavior rules are violated, serving to detect criminal acts and other deviant behaviors. Historically, motion-specific alarms were very basic and created frequent nuisance alarms. Over time, this became annoying and the alarms were often ignored. Video analytics were no longer serving their purpose.
Since the widespread acknowledgement of this issue, analytic technologies have improved significantly. Because of the quality of the improvements, video surveillance cameras are now multi-purpose and work to the benefit of security teams as well as human resources, business operations, and other integral departments.
Manufacturing operations can leverage video analytics technologies by deploying a variety of digital rules that alert operational teams and management to rule violations.
1) Personal Safety
Workplace injuries cause downtime and decreased productivity. By creating a safer workplace, employees can work confidently while management can demonstrate a lower corporate risk.
Video surveillance cameras can be deployed overhead where workers operate near moving vehicles, machinery, or production equipment. By creating “do not cross” lines in a camera’s field of view, the camera can create an alert when a person crosses a virtual line near machinery or vehicle pathways. This alert can trip a buzzer or siren, or even stop a production line, until the worker returns to a safe area.
2) Heavy Equipment Operations
Vehicles are typically restricted to specific travel pathways within a facility. Cameras can monitor these pathways and, when an authorized pathway is violated, initiate an alarm, siren, or rotating light in the activated area.
3) Asset Protection
Conveyer belts carry important packages and keep production moving. When packages fall from a conveyer belt or aren’t flowing smoothly along the production line, an alarm can be sent to operational supervisors alerting them to a problem on the line.
4) Inbound/Outbound Management
Video analytics deployed on cameras at loading docks can alert operational teams when a delivery truck arrives or departs, allowing teams to be prepared for new deliveries and alerting coordinators to vacant bays for incoming deliveries.
The same video analytics can be used to create an alert when access roads or parking lots are blocked by parked or disabled vehicles. Vehicles traveling in the wrong direction can cause an alert as well.
Bonus Application: Streamlining Operations
While the previous applications reference the use of video analytics for real-time operational and safety alerts, the technology can also be used on previously recorded video to improve business operations. The various rules that can be applied to live video feeds can also be applied after video has been recorded. This helps solve the “I wonder how many times that has happened?” question that is typically asked after something has caught the attention of supervisors and management teams.
